


life is a road (and i wanna keep going)

by savage_starlight



Series: after many miles [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1, Drinking, F/F, Foul Language, Found Family, Gays in the Old West, Literally a goddamn forest worth of mutual pining Come On Guys, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, UnDeadwood Mini-series (Critical Role), Western Gothic, you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 04:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savage_starlight/pseuds/savage_starlight
Summary: Five times the Reverend watched Clayton drink and one time he joined him.(There's more than just corpses in a town like Deadwood.)





	life is a road (and i wanna keep going)

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO EVERYBODEEEEEEEE!!! Me again with a rare case of fluff instead of just deadass agony. I know, I'm surprised too. Don't worry, the angst will return sooner rather than later.
> 
> In the meantime, this one is written for a prompt fill issued by the wonderful "stuff-what-i-take-pictures-of" on tumblr, who wanted me to do either a 5+1 injuries fic or a 5+1 drinking fic between Mason and Clayton. I've been wanting to do a 5+1 for ages, so I'm very grateful that I had this excuse. Up next, either more fluffy fic or more angst fic...Haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll take a poll, maybe I'll flip a coin. Who knows??
> 
> In other news, there is now an UnDeadwood discord!! If anyone cares to join who is not already there, feel free to dm me on tumblr at who-gave-atlas-a-pencil.tumblr.com, and I'll be happy to get you a current invite link. It's a wonderful and super inviting group and we'd be happy to have you!!
> 
> The title this time around comes from "At The Beginning" from Anastasia, as covered by Evynne and Peter Hollens. It's perhaps not as tonally accurate as some of the other songs I associate with this fandom, but I think it works anyway.
> 
> I think that's about it for notes and announcements this time around, so until the next fic, thank you all so so SO much for all your kind words and continued support. I've never really been this involved in a fandom before and it's so much fun to get to talk to people about all this stuff so frequently and to work with people. I hope you enjoy this fic as much as you've enjoyed the last ones, and I'll see y'all again real soon!!

**i.**

There’s not much hope to be found in Deadwood. Matthew supposes it’s in the name, if he’d been smart enough to look for it before answering that telegram, but – well. He hasn’t exactly come here looking for hope. He’s come here looking for distance.

There’s a grave and a string of bad luck like a curse waiting for him somewhere out East, but he doesn’t intend to go back that way, not when he’s come this far. All the same, it’s hard to feel brave in a place like this, the starched collar of his vestments still chafing at his throat. He’s not used to this yet, but he will be, or that’s what he keeps telling himself as he turns down a glass of whiskey and smiles broad as he dares at a bartender who doesn’t smile back.

Most people don’t in these parts. He’s learning that the hard way, and he’s surprised he’s not found himself beaten down in a back alleyway yet. Everybody here is cold as steel and twice as sharp, their only softness in the slur of their words when the alcohol kicks in. The girls in the saloons laugh like they’re enjoying themselves but it’s hollow underneath, never real. He knows an act when he sees one.

But right now he’s not looking for an act. He’s searching for someplace he can look without getting his eyes gouged out by somebody who thinks he’s looking at them. This isn’t a friendly town, not by a long shot, and he doesn’t find himself terribly enthralled by the idea of dying less than a week after he’s arrived. He’d at least like to finish clearing the rubble away from the church before somebody murders him in it.

His eyes settle on a dark corner of the bar, the closest thing he can find to a safe place to stare. It’s empty, or at least that’s what he thinks at first. Then he sees the figure in the shadows.

At first he thinks it’s a figment of his imagination, the product of one too many bad nights leading to late nights leading to long nights without sleep leading to the moment here and now where he’s convinced, momentarily, that he’s hallucinating. The figure is a man, he thinks, a man in a long, dark coat, a hat pulled low over his eyes and a bottle of whiskey on the table that he’s drinking slowly but surely. He’s watching someone, or something, or maybe the whole room in general, but he never talks to anybody and nobody talks to him either, a mutual agreement to ignorance that stretches on so long that Matthew eventually concludes that the figure can’t be real.

Then a tap on the bar grabs his attention. He turns back around to find the bartender staring at him with a sour look. “You’re new in town, so I’m gonna give you some advice, Father.”

Matthew blinks. “Er…yes?”

“Don’t look in that corner.”

“Why?” Matthew’s eyes shoot instinctively back in that direction before he catches himself. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Outside of the person sitting in it, nothing,” the bartender says with a snort.

Matthew frowns, briefly stunned by the revelation that the figure is real, that it’s not just some odd vision inside his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m following your meaning.”

“There’s somethin’ wrong with that fucker,” the bartender elaborates flatly, cleaning off a glass. “There’s folk ‘round here who call him the Coffin. Unless you wanna find yourself in a pine box yourself, I’d suggest you not look too closely.” He moves away to pour another whiskey.

Against his will, Matthew finds his eyes moving back to the corner. The Coffin, he thinks, and turns the moniker over in his mouth like a sour candy. The man doesn’t look like a coffin-making type, or even the coffin-filling type. He looks impassive, and disinterested, and graver than a churchyard. Matthew stares a long time to see if anyone goes to talk to the man, wondering if he’s as cold and distant as he seems. But nobody approaches. Nobody tries.

The man drinks slowly, long into the night.

* * *

**ii.**

The second time the figure from the shadows takes to drinking, there’s a lot less distance between them. The Coffin, Matthew’s learned, has a given name to go with the moniker. Clayton Sharpe is grim and tall and quick with a gun, with blue eyes like chips of slate beneath the shadows of the hat he always wears. He doesn’t talk much unless he’s got something to say, and it doesn’t take long for Matthew to start expecting some sort of wry remark or flat annoyance whenever he sees the man open his mouth. He’s got a low tolerance for stupid things and an even lower tolerance for stupid people, but he somehow seems to keep landing himself in situations that leave him surrounded by both.

Matthew thinks he’d feel bad about that if he were brave enough. Mostly, he’s just glad. Clayton’s tendency to be surrounded by stupid often means he’s also in Matthew’s vague vicinity, and it’s real hard to feel guilty about such good company in a place like this. Clayton doesn’t talk much, but he’s got a way of making his silences feel easy, like a warm coat in the winter, and it’s a welcome change from the way everywhere else in this town exists in the breath before a bullet fires.

They’re celebrating the end of the business with Swearengen this time, and everybody has scattered to enjoy themselves in the way they like best. Miriam and Bella had disappeared with mischievous looks in their eyes and Aloysius hadn’t been far behind, though Matthew suspects he’d gone in a different direction once he’d reached the door. It’s left him and Clayton alone together in the Gem Saloon, a slightly awkward but nevertheless pleasant arrangement.

“You drink, Father?” Clayton asks, pouring himself a shot of whiskey from the bottle at their table and raising an eyebrow when Matthew turns him down. “That’s a first,” he mutters, lifting his own glass to his lips. “Can’t think of many people who’d willingly take this place on sober.”

Matthew smiles, faint but genuine. “You aren’t the first person to tell me that.”

“That so?” Clayton raises an eyebrow, expectant.

Matthew nods. “The previous Reverend didn’t leave much to go on in his telegram for help, but he was…quite clear, in that regard.”

“Given that he was run out of town at the end of about a half dozen torches, I can see where he might have been a bit bitter,” Clayton says drily, and there’s something so flat in his expression that Matthew can’t help but laugh. It earns him a strange look, and the already raised eyebrow arches even further. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. You just have an interesting gift for understatement is all,” Matthew says, and shakes his head with a faint smile that fades all too quickly the longer he has to think. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You mean other than the one you just asked?”

“Preferably, yes.”

“Then it depends on the question.”

“Do you think we’ll all still be seeing each other after this?”

There’s a very specific way that Clayton stiffens when he’s asked questions he doesn’t want to answer, and he does it now. Matthew watches as he straightens, lifting his chin in the barest hint of not-quite defiance. “Don’t quite follow what you’re asking.”

Matthew very much doubts that, but he plays along anyway. “The job’s over. We’ve done what Mister Swearengen asked of us, and it seems unlikely that he’ll be looking to us as investigators again any time soon. What do you think that means for our future?”

“Think it means the future goes on same way as the past did,” Clayton says, shrugging slightly. “You gonna stay in Deadwood?”

“Of course,” Matthew says without a second thought. “The church still needs to be rebuilt, uphill battle though that may be. Why do you ask?”

Clayton leans back in his chair and fixes Matthew with a steady look. “Well, I’m staying in Deadwood too, and something tells me Arabella won’t be going anywhere Miriam doesn’t. Aloysius is getting himself set up too, seems like. Might be me, but I don’t see a reason we wouldn’t run into each other now and then.”

Matthew can’t explain the relief that floods through him at the sound of those words, but he feels it all the same, warm and bursting across his face in a smile he can’t quite stop. “Good,” he says, “That’s real good.”

* * *

**iii. **

The third time, it’s the middle of the night. They’re on the road again, and it’s Matthew’s turn for watch but Clayton’s up anyway, taking swig after liberal swig from both his flasks and staring into the flames like he’ll find the answer to some kind of terrible question buried deep in them, if he looks long enough.

There’s a dark, stiff stain on the right side of Clayton’s coat, just underneath his ribs where the creature they’d fought earlier had grabbed him with its claws and dug in deep. It looks like it has to hurt like the fires of hell, but Clayton won’t let anyone touch it, just holds the injury the same way he’s been holding his silence since it happened, close and raw.

Matthew believes in God, or he tries to, but days like today make him understand what it is that Clayton sees in people, how feral they really are, and the thought leaves his tongue tasting like ashes in his mouth. Across the fire, Clayton’s stopped drinking now, and his eyes are blank like a doll’s, his jaw set.

Matthew can’t take it. He knows it’s a bad idea, maybe even a terrible one, knows that Clayton’s not a talkative man on a good day and it’s bound to be even worse now, but he can’t stay sitting across the fire and pretending the other man doesn’t look like he’s staring down his own grave.

He approaches slowly to avoid startling him, but if Clayton notices at all he doesn’t react, nor does he react when Matthew settles down cautiously at his side and makes himself comfortable. He waits for several minutes before he speaks, keeping his voice soft and low. “I haven’t seen you take a drink in a while. Did you run out?”

There’s no response, not for a long time. Matthew starts to think he won’t get one at all when he finally sees Clayton nod, the movement so small he almost misses it.

“Do you want more?”

Clayton laughs, short and flat. “Gonna turn water to wine, Preach?”

“No,” Matthew says, frowning. “But I doubt Miriam would mind parting with one of her flasks.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Clayton-“

“_Don’t.” _There’s an anger in Clayton’s voice that Matthew’s never heard before, cold and thin as ice. “Just don’t.”

Matthew can’t see Clayton’s eyes, can’t try to decipher what might be in them. He thinks, not for the first time since arriving in Deadwood, that he may be somewhat out of his depth here, and he feels that now more keenly than he ever has before. Clayton is a good man, and a kind one, but the pain that normally hides in his eyes is now wrapped around him like armour and Matthew doesn’t know how to heal it. He believes in miracles, but he has painfully little experience in bringing them about.

All the same, he has to try.

Matthew stands and crosses to Miriam’s pack, rustling through it carefully and quickly in the light of the fire until he finds one of the flasks. There’s a part of him that feels bad for it, but then he remembers the look she’d given him before she’d gone to bed, the one she’d leveled at Clayton when he’d sat down by the fire and refused to stand back up. He’ll beg her forgiveness in the morning, but he doesn’t think he’ll have to beg too hard.

Taking a roll of bandages from his own pack, Matthew returns to Clayton and positions himself once more on his injured side. “Let me see your side,” he says, the words quiet in the silence.

“What.”

“You heard me.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’re hurt,” Matthew says, and when he sees Clayton’s lip curl he cuts off the remark he knows is coming. “You are. Today was terrible and I know it was even worse for you, I know it was. We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to. But you can’t walk around with a hole like that in your side. You’ll get sick.”

“I’ll get better too.”

“Let me help you, Clayton,” Matthew snaps, because this man can be stubborn as a mule but damn it all, he can be stubborn too. “Please.”

Clayton’s eyes shoot up to meet Matthew’s for the first time in hours, ice blue and angry, and he feels momentarily pinned under their intensity but he knows better than to be afraid. “Please,” he says again, much softer. “Let me help.”

Clayton closes his eyes, and for a long time Matthew thinks he’ll tell him no. He thinks he’ll tell him to go to hell again. He thinks he’ll say nothing at all and retreat back into that place inside himself where he keeps disappearing to and maybe not come out ever again.

Then Clayton nods, slow and slight, and wordlessly starts to shrug off his coat. There’s a brief moment of lightheaded relief before he realises, somewhat abruptly, that he’s never actually treated anyone’s injuries but his own. _Please, Lord, let me be a fast study,_ he thinks as he inches closer and waits for Clayton to still again.

It doesn’t take long for Clayton to disrobe as far as he needs to, even with how slow he’s moving, and a minute later he’s sitting stiffly once more, arms crossed over his chest as he holds his shirt up over his injured side. He’s got his eyes closed again like he’s bracing for something, and Matthew aches at the sight but doesn’t have anything to say to make it better and so he doesn’t try. “I’m sorry if this hurts,” he says, and quietly gets to work.

It’s not a pretty injury by a long shot, and though Matthew’s stomach turns just a little at the sight of it he swallows back the instinctive rise of bile. The creature they’d fought earlier had been some stitched together nightmare with the face of a child, and it’s not until now that Matthew realises just how sharp its claws had been. The gashes it had torn into Clayton’s side are deep and ugly and in desperate need of stitches to avoid what’s already going to be one hell of a scar, and though he tries to be gentle he doesn’t miss the sharp way that Clayton winces every time he comes near with the whiskey-soaked rag. It’s hard to keep going, knowing he’s hurting him, but this is the only way he can be useful now and it’s necessary and he knows that and so he does what he always does: he starts to sing.

He doesn’t think about the words or the tune, but he doesn’t have to. He shifts from song to song in a quiet mindlessness as he works, stopping only to take a breath. He’s through Be Thou My Vision and Shenandoah and he’s just wrapped up with the second verse of Danny Boy when Clayton finally speaks again, low and raspy. “Are you Irish?’

Matthew pauses mid-stitch, eyebrows furrowing. “Am I what?”

“You keep singin’ Irish songs,” Clayton says, and when Matthew blinks at him he shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“No, I- Yes, I am. I think.” Matthew resumes stitching with a faint flush to his cheeks that he hopes the late hour will conceal. “I didn’t think you were listening.”

“Hard not to when you’re this close.”

“It’s a bit of a habit, I’m afraid,” Matthew admits, a bit sheepish. “I rarely notice when I start anymore.” Almost as an afterthought, he glances around the camp to see if the others are awake too, and is grateful when they all seem undisturbed. He must have sung quietly, even if it hadn’t been intentional.

“You got a good voice,” Clayton says, the edges of the words blurring into each other just slightly. His breath smells like whiskey, and for a foolish second, Matthew wonders if- no. He pushes the thought away and instead murmurs a quick thank you. He thinks that’ll be the end of the conversation, but not even a minute later, Clayton speaks again. “What are you doin’ here, Matthew?”

“Stitching your side shut at the moment, though I’m afraid it’s not terribly pretty.”

“That’s not what I meant. What are you doin’ _here?_” Matthew doesn’t look up, but he can feel Clayton’s eyes on him, heavy and expectant. “Deadwood’s a dead-end shithole and there ain’t nobody there who wants redemption. What’s here for you?”

Matthew swallows, turning the question over in his mind. This moment is familiar to him, and he thinks of the last time he and Clayton had traded questions over a fire. _I don’t think you ever leave your life behind,_ he’d said, and the thought still hangs heavy in Matthew’s mind. If there’s no such thing as a new beginning then there’s no hope for him, not here or anywhere. Death is too final for second chances.

Then again, all his run ins with death have led him here to this place, to this moment. For fifty feet around him, he’s surrounded by firelight and friends, and it’s strange to think it but for all its horror there is something truly beautiful about this place. It’s a place where people can show up without a name and make a new one, where someone can throw a snuffbox against a wall and tell fate it’s wrong and learn to live again. Maybe that isn’t holy, but it’s something close.

“I’m here because there’s hope,” Matthew says eventually, tying off the last stitch. “I’d like to think that people can change. That just because things are usually getting worse doesn’t mean they can’t get better.” There isn’t a reply, but he isn’t expecting one. He wraps the roll of bandages around Clayton’s torso and ties it off in silence, then stands.

“Hope,” Clayton repeats, shaking his head. “Really.”

Matthew fingers the rosary in his pocket. “Yes.”

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, Mason.”

“I know.” He lets his hand fall. “Thank you, Clay.”

Clayton snorts. “For what?”

“For letting me help.” Matthew passes to the other side of the fire again and lets the silence linger.

* * *

**iv. **

It’s a quiet ordeal, the day they bury Eugene Whitlock. He dies the way he lived, quiet and just a little bit off, but nobody questioned it in life and they don’t question it now either. Matthew does the service and says the prayers like he’s supposed to, and when Bella kisses him on the cheek after the ceremony she tells him that he did right by her. He doesn’t ask which her she’s referring to, the living sister or the dead one. He isn’t sure he wants to know.

They’re drinking that night at the Gem Saloon, where Al Swearengen has apparently decided that he wants them on his side for good and is giving them drinks for cheap in honour of Bella’s bereavement. Matthew tries not to think too hard on the implications of that, and finds himself failing miserably as he watches Clayton pour one shot and then another before sitting at the table.

He slides a glass across the wood. “Take one. You’ve earned it.”

Matthew smiles faintly and pushes it back. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m quite alright. I just got people to stop talking about the new Reverend being a drunk.”

Clayton snorts. “It’s been almost a year now. Think you can cross the new bit off your name plate. Anyway, people don’t think too frequently around here. I wouldn’t worry about what happens when they do.” He slides the shot over again.

Matthew hums and doesn’t bother rejecting it a second time, but he doesn’t drink it either. Instead, he fingers the rim of the glass, quietly contemplating the way the whiskey inside catches in the light. It’s beautiful, in a strange way. So is poison.

A gloved hand taps on the table. Matthew looks up to see Clayton staring at him with furrowed brows from under the brim of his hat. “You alright?”

“Bit pre-occupied,” Matthew says, forcing a smile. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Clayton frowns but leans back in his chair. “If you’re sure.”

Matthew isn’t sure, that’s the problem. He’s not sure that he’s done the right thing, or that he’s doing the right thing now. He’s not sure if it’s God or the Devil or someone in between that’s put this power in his hands, the power to hold a funeral mass without flinching for a man whose death he isn’t sorry about, the power to put a man in the ground with a flick of his wrist. He’s not sure why he’s here, or how he’s here, or what he’s supposed to be doing because trying to become a better person isn’t going like he’d expected it to no matter what he does.

“Now would you look at that?” Clayton’s words pull Matthew from his reverie, and he follows the gunslinger’s gaze across the room. He’s looking at Arabella, who is holding onto Miriam’s elbow and talking to some drunken idiot with a wicked brightness in her eyes. Matthew knows that look well, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Arabella look so happy in any context before, whether she’s making a fool of someone or not. “For a widow, she sure seems to find a lot to smile about.”

“I’ve heard it wasn’t always an easy marriage,” Matthew says, well aware that it’s redundant given who he’s talking to.

Clayton smirks as he raises a glass of whiskey to his lips. “That’s a shame. Seems like a weight off her shoulders, now that things are what they are.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Does he indeed,” Clayton says, and Matthew isn’t quite sure if it’s meant to be a question but he’s certain Clayton isn’t looking for an answer. He never is. “It seems the Lord’s seen fit to give her a bit of good luck then.”

Matthew doesn’t respond, not at first. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to call what happened to Eugene “good luck”, but when he looks at Bella he can’t help but notice the way she stands straighter now, less like she’s tied to a pole and more like there’s been a weight knocked off her shoulders. When he looks at the others, he can see that same weight now missing, or at least lessened – sees it in the way Aly laughs instead of checking over his shoulder, in the way Miriam raises her eyebrow at just the right angle to set any man with a lick of sense back in his place. This town is dark but they’re radiant in the midst of it, glowing with their laughter and their ridiculous jokes and the bonds that are between them now, and though there is an element of a terrible thing to all of this there is something else of beauty in it, too.

He looks across the table and watches Clayton watching the others, and though the other man’s face is nearly clean of expression Matthew can still see the light in his eyes, the faint curl at the corner of his mouth as his Adam’s apple bobs and he swallows back a shot. “She looks happy,” Clayton says.

“Yes,” Matthew says, his eyes still fixed on Clayton’s face. “Yes, she does.”

* * *

**v. **

More often than not, Matthew finds himself wishing that more people in Deadwood could be bothered with attending church. Today is an exception. It’s the middle of the night and in a real town, a proper town, Matthew would be worried about somebody coming in to pray at this hour, but here in Deadwood everyone prefers committing crimes over confessing them.

Sometimes that’s a problem, but tonight it’s a blessing. It means that they have an all but fireproof guarantee that nobody’s going to walk in on whatever it is they get up to. It’s for the best, Matthew thinks. Put politely, this moment isn’t anyone’s concern.

It’s Aloysius who takes Miram’s arm to walk her to the front of the church, and though it’s more for fun than actual ceremony Clayton does the same for Bella. Matthew doesn’t think either of them notice past a passing remark, not with the way their eyes are fixed on each other and all but glowing, but he thinks it’s a wonderful gesture nonetheless.

“Friends,” he begins, “we are gathered here today-“

“All five of us,“ Clayton mutters.

“-to celebrate the marriage of these two women before us.”

“Hey Reverend,” Aloysius interrupts, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You think you could skip ahead to the part where we get to start drinking wine?”

Matthew sighs, but there isn’t much venom to it. “No, but we could get there faster if I wasn’t interrupted.”

“Listen to the Reverend, Aly,” Bella says, and there’s a smile in her tone as she keeps on staring at Miriam’s face, the fingers of both hands laced together with Miriam’s. “This is too important to rush.”

“Yeah, alright.” Aloysius settles back with a grin on his face that plainly says he knew that would be the response, and it’s funny the way fondness rushes through Matthew’s veins as he shares a look with Clayton and picks up the makeshift mass again.

It’s not a long service, not when there’s so few people and no real singing involved and so little ceremony to overcomplicate things, but it is a pretty one. Miriam and Bella don’t stop grinning through all of it, and when they exchange their vows and finally kiss it feels like the most sacred thing to have ever happened in this church. Bella throws her bridal bouquet square at Clayton’s face, and Matthew laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

Later, Aloysius takes to the piano and the ladies take to dancing, and Matthew finds his way over by Clayton the way he always does. He’s got a glass of whiskey in his hands, and he passes it off to Clayton as soon as he’s in range.

The other man takes it, then looks between the whiskey and Matthew’s face with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t think most churches have this kind of liquor in ‘em, Father,” he says, a little bland.

“Most churches don’t hold late night ceremonies like this either,” Matthew points out, leaning against the pew next to Clayton to watch the ladies dance. “I thought it for the best if I brought some outside sources of inebriation before Aloysius decided to drink the ceremonial wine.”

“Fair enough.” Clayton nods toward the second glass in Matthew’s hands. “What’s in that one? Thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t,” Matthew says, holding the glass somewhat awkwardly. “It’s a cider. Arabella found it for me some time ago and I’m finally putting it to use.”

Clayton nods again and for a time, there’s a silence between them. It’s a long while before he speaks, and his voice is low enough not to carry. “Got a question for you.”

Matthew blinks, certain this is a first, then clears his throat. “I may have an answer.”

“You think this is gonna last?”

In another time, Matthew doesn’t know if he would understand the question, if he would know the answer, but in this moment it feels like an almost foolish thing to wonder. Arabella is laughing, and Miriam is leaned against the piano while Aly tells some ridiculous story he’s told a dozen times already that still gets them all rolling every time they hear it, and this moment is quiet and small and it is the most beautiful thing Matthew has ever witnessed.

“I hope it does,” he says, and means it with all he has.

Clayton nods, and lifts his glass. “To crossing our fingers until they fuckin’ bleed.”

“To us,” Matthew agrees. He clinks his cup and drinks.

* * *

**i. the beginning**

There’s not much hope to be found in Deadwood, not really. It’s been more than a year now since Matthew first stepped off the train and it’s still a shithole of a town where almost every morning starts with some poorly attended funeral service and an even worse attended normal service. It’s not a pretty place, or a kind one, not by a long shot.

It is, however, a beautiful place. The graveyard grows a little more every day but somehow there’s always flowers that start to grow around the dirt mounds, and every now and then a sunset makes it look like the whole sky is ablaze, and even in the harshest and most frozen winters there’s always a warm fire to sit around while Aly tells stories and Miriam holds Arabella and Clayton watches all of them, the slightest hint of a curve at the corner of his mouth. Matthew loves these people, and this town, and though there’s still a grave and a string of bad luck like a curse buried somewhere East of here it doesn’t feel so much like a shadow anymore, just a memory that comes back sometimes when the sun is at its brightest and the moon is full and he wakes up worried that one day he’ll have to start over again.

His hands still shake in the middle of the night, but he’s learning how to breathe them back to calm again. He’s learning to breathe. He’s learning.

Matthew stands outside the Grand Central with one hand buried in his pocket, fingering the familiar rosary with its cracked beads and overlarge crucifix, and he thinks of a time, long ago, when he’d laid in the dark and prayed for guidance. He thinks he’s on the right path now.

Taking a deep breath, he walks into the saloon and searches the room. It’s been a long time since Clayton was just the figure in the shadows, but he still sits here sometimes, always watching the room around him. He looks up at Matthew as he approaches, one eyebrow arching curiously. "Strange running into you here, Matthew," he says, studying his face as he sits down. "Everything alright?"

"It's fine," Matthew says, and nods toward the bottle of whiskey on the table, barely touched. "May I?"

"Certainly." Clayton pours a shot into the glass that's already there while gesturing for another one to be brought. "What's the occasion?"

Matthew smiles, hesitant. "I don't know yet. Just doesn't quite seem fair to leave you to drink alone all this time. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all," Clayton says. The second glass comes and he fills it, then looks at Matthew like he's waiting for something.

Matthew takes a deep breath and lets it out. He's learning. He meets Clayton's eyes, and he smiles. "To new beginnings," he says.

"To new beginnings," Clayton echoes, and drinks.


End file.
